For good measure, Krysty hit the thing a few more times, breaking the internal contents into numerous small pieces.
While she was doing this, Ryan and J.B. booted the monitors into similar fragments, turning them into heaps of electronic rubbish.
“We’ve got to see if we’re safe,” Krysty said. “Let’s get one of these manacles off. We can cut it with that tribarrel of yours, J.B. Do mine first.”
“Wait a minute,” Ryan said. “Something just occurred to me. There could be a backup system for the cuffs somewhere else in the compound. We haven’t searched the whole place yet.”
“Well, we can’t just stand here,” Krysty said.
“J.B.,” Ryan said, “cut one of mine first.”
“No, Ryan.”
“Do my left hand.” Ryan took off his gauntlet, exposing the dull silver band.
J.B. didn’t hesitate. It wasn’t the kind of decision made easier by a pause to reflect. He angled the muzzle under the manacle. When he pressed the trigger, the green beam sawed through the cuff, cutting a neat slot across it about an inch wide.
“Guess we chilled the bastard,” Ryan said as he twisted the smoking thing off his wrist.
“Which means we can help free Mildred and the others,” J.B. replied.
“There’s something else we’ve got to see to first,” Krysty told them. She quickly explained what had happened to her, why she had been kidnapped and what Dredda and the she-hes intended to do with what they had stolen from her, and from Ryan.
Krysty pointed at the she-he on the floor, who was just beginning to stir, and said, “That one told me they were getting ready to make another jump.”
“From what’s going on outside, that sounds about right,” J.B. said.
“No way am I going to father an army of these hell bitches,” Ryan told them angrily. “Before they jump, we’d better find that damned stuff and destroy it.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Four black wags skidded to a stop on the long straightaway above Mildred. There was nowhere for her to go. She couldn’t back up and she couldn’t proceed. As she braked the ore truck, the first two attack wags pulled side to side, so both could bring their forward weapons pods to bear. The cannons locked on target. The range was 150 feet.
“Oh, man,” she groaned, anticipating annihilation.
When the cannons fired, they did so simultaneously. The double flash exploded into a blinding wall of green as the pulses slammed the ore wag’s EM shield.
This was serious weaponry.
The impact of the cannon beams against the shield made the ore wag jolt backward, despite the fact that Mildred was holding down the brake. The six locked wheels slipped in reverse a good twenty feet, making a grinding noise on the road as the truck slewed slightly sideways.
“I hesitate to bring up the matter,” Doc said, “but there’s a bit of a drop-off on this side.”
Mildred glanced over his shoulder and got a powerful adrenaline rush. “A bit of a drop-off!” she exclaimed.
What loomed just off the shoulder of the road was a yawning crevasse. It looked bottomless. If they tipped over into it, they weren’t coming out again. Ever. Craning her head around to look behind them, Mildred saw that the chasm necked down at its Ground Zero end, its ragged lips coming together, melding into a flat, glassy field. Even from where she sat, she could see the field was split by wide surface cracks.
The assault wags sent a second dual blast their way.
It had the same effect.
The huge wheels, though locked, and the cargo box, though loaded with people and ore, were insufficient to anchor the wag where it was. Like an invisible hand, the blowback from the EM shield pushed the truck farther down the road, increasing the sideways cant, bringing the back wheels closer to the edge of nothingness.
“Another shot we go over,” Jak said.
“Fuck this,” Mildred cursed. At the same instant the assault wags fired, she mashed down the joystick’s speed button, plowing the nose of the ore truck into the next shot.
The jolt sent the companions bouncing off the dashboard, but they lost no ground. Mildred crept the wag back into its original position. When the enemy tried another blast, she did the same thing, powering into the pulses. Again, she, Doc, Dean and Jak were thrown into the dash. Again, they maintained their position.